The Lead

The Obama administration said Wednesday it will issue the first regulations to cut down on methane emissions from new natural gas wells, aiming to curb the discharge of a potent greenhouse gas by roughly half. Relying once again on the Clean Air Act, the rules join a host of others that Obama has ordered in an effort to slow global warming despite opposition to new laws in Congress that has only hardened since the midterm elections.

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U.S. government health regulators on Thursday approved the first hard-to-abuse version of the painkiller hydrocodone, offering an alternative to a similar medication that has been widely criticized for lacking such safeguards. The FDA approved Purdue Pharma's Hysingla ER for patients with severe, round-the-clock pain that cannot be managed with other treatments.

If the majority of light-duty vehicles in the U.S. ran on higher-octane gasoline, the automotive industry as a whole would reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 35 million tons per year, saving up to $6 billion in fuel costs, according to a new analysis by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers.

U.S. health officials are recommending that people who are at highest risk for coming down with Ebola avoid commercial travel or attending large public gatherings, even if they have no symptoms. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued the updated advice to state and local officials on Monday.

President Barack Obama urged his top national security and public health officials on Monday to incorporate lessons from the most recent Texas Ebola infection into the U.S.'s response plans to the deadly virus. He also called on the international community to deliver assistance more quickly to the countries of West Africa that are struggling against the disease.

Spurred chiefly by China, the United States and India, the world spewed far more carbon pollution into the air last year than ever before. The world pumped an estimated 39.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air last year by burning coal, oil and gas. That is 778 million tons or 2.3% more than the previous year. World leaders gather this week to discuss how to reduce heat-trapping gases.

The American Society of Civil Engineers are urging Congress and the Obama Administration to develop a national strategy for mitigating flood risks, saying the U.S. has not fully heeded lessons from Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy. A sustainable way to pay for infrastructure maintenance and updates to help manage floods is needed, they say, and they will release their full recommendations Monday in Philadelphia.

DARPA’s new Electrical Prescriptions (ElectRx) program was among the initiatives the White House highlighted this week as President Barack Obama addressed the need for new and more effective strategies for improving the health of service members, veterans and others. ElectRx goes beyond medication, aiming to explore neuromodulation of organ functions to help the human body heal itself.

As the Obama administration weans the U.S. off dirty fuels blamed for global warming, energy companies have been sending more of America's unwanted energy leftovers to other parts of the world where they could create even more pollution. This fossil fuel trade threatens to undermine the president's strategy for reducing the gases blamed for climate change and also reveals a side effect of countries acting alone on a global problem.

The Government Accountability Office issued a report Wednesday saying NASA's Space Launch System is at "high risk of missing" its planned December 2017 initial test flight. The agency doesn't have enough money to get its new, $12 billion rocket system, the largest ever built, off the ground.

Japan has approved the export of a locally-made component for a missile defense system to the U.S. and is launching joint research with Britain on air-to-air missile technology for fighter jets. The approval late Thursday marks the first defense technology transfer since Japan eased military export rules in April.

Systems that automatically read automobile license plates have the potential to save police investigative time and increase safety, but law enforcement officials must address issues related to staffing, compatibility and privacy before the technology can reach its full potential, according to a new RAND Corp. report.

Hawaii's Board of Land and Natural Resources has approved a sublease for a $1.3 billion telescope that would be one of the world's largest, but the approval is on hold until the board hears objections in a separate review process. The board met Friday to discuss issues raised previously about a plan to build the Thirty Meter Telescope on the summit of the Mauna Kea volcano on Hawaii's Big Island.

Imagine a low-cost treatment for a life-threatening infection that could cure up to 90% of patients with minimal side effects, often in a few days.It may sound like a miracle drug, but this cutting-edge treatment is profoundly simple—though somewhat icky: take the stool of healthy patients to cure those with hard-to-treat intestinal infections.

Responding to a major case of research misconduct, federal prosecutors are taking a rare step by charging a scientist with fraud after he admitted falsifying data while researching an HIV vaccine. Authorities say former Iowa State Univ. laboratory manager Dong-Pyou Han has confessed to manipulating data that helped his team get millions in grants and increased hopes of a major breakthrough in AIDS research.

In early March, a mysterious ship the size of a large passenger ferry left Romania and plotted a course toward Scandinavia. About a month later, at the fenced-in headquarters of Norway's military intelligence service, the country's spychief disclosed its identity. It was a $250 million spy ship, tentatively named Marjata, that will be equipped with sensors and other technology to snoop on Russia's activities in the Arctic beginning in 2016.

A new congressionally mandated report from the National Research Council concludes that the expense of human spaceflight and the dangers to the astronauts involved can be justified only by the goal of putting humans on other worlds. The authors recommend a disciplined “pathway” approach that eventually leads to the “horizon goal” of putting humans on Mars.

The U.S. government rolled out a plan Monday to cut carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by 30% by 2030, a centerpiece of President Barack Obama's efforts to reduce the pollution linked to global warming. The rule, expected to be final next year, sets in motion one of the most significant actions on global warming in U.S. history.

The EPA has announced a proposal to reduce oil refinery pollution that, if adopted, would mark the first change to the industry's emission standards in nearly two decades. The move is part of a consent decree that resolved a lawsuit filed by nonprofit environmental attorneys with Earthjustice and the Environmental Integrity Project on behalf of people directly affected by emissions from refineries in Louisiana, Texas and California.

The U.N.'s expert panel on climate change is under pressure this week as it considers whether geoengineering should be part of the tool-kit that governments use to keep global warming in check. Drafts leaked before the conference only mentioned one of the proposed options, removing carbon dioxide from the air and storing it underground. But some countries support solar radiation management as well.

After concluding that global warming almost certainly is man-made and poses a grave threat to humanity, the U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, is meeting next week in Berlin to chart ways in which the world can curb the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are overheating the planet. It is also trying to give estimates on what it would cost.

After insisting that space relations wouldn't be altered by earthly politics, NASA announced it was severing ties with Russia except for the International Space Station. NASA employees can't travel to Russia or host visitors until further notice. They're also barred from emailing or holding teleconferences with their Russian counterparts because of Russia's actions in Ukraine, according to a memo sent to workers.

A first-of-its kind conference examining the role of China’s evolving international science and technology relationships will take place April 3-4 at Arizona State Univ.’s Tempe campus. The conference, called “The Evolving Role of Science and Technology in China’s International Relations,” hopes to enable a more thorough understanding of the multiple dimensions of China’s external science and technology collaborations.

Although markets for trading carbon emission credits to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have stalled in U.S. federal policy-making, carbon markets are emerging at the state level within the U.S. and around the world, teaching us more about what does and doesn't work.

The White House on Wednesday announced an initiative to provide private companies and local governments better access to already public climate data. The idea is that with this localized data they can help the public understand the risks they face, especially in coastal areas. The government also is working with Google, Microsoft and Intel, to come up with tools to make communities more resilient in dealing with weather extremes.

The federal government has signed off on a long-delayed study looking at marijuana as a treatment for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, a development that drug researchers are hailing as a major shift in U.S. policy. The Dept. of Health and Human Services' decision surprised marijuana advocates who have struggled for decades to secure federal approval for research into the drug's medical uses.